The Land Before Time - alternate ending
by Jewel Gunderson
Summary: I was bored last night and this idea for a slight change to the first movie's ending came to mind as I was watching my VHS copy (I'd found it the day before laying around). It's only a slight change to the final scene of the first movie, but that was all I'd intended to do really. I'm giving it a T-rating just to be safe. (Nearly all of the dialogue comes from the actual movie.)


**Author's note:** So last night, when I found my VHS copy of _The Land Before Time_ and decided to watch it since I hadn't in years, this one shot (a rather long one) came to mind. I only changed up a tiny bit of the part of this that is a scene from the movie and of course the ending scene, but that was really all I'd intended to do.

It's a bit dark, but my intention behind this is for what would have happened at the end of the first movie if they weren't any sequels to _The Land Before Time._ Or at the least, it's an event that would greatly change them up if they did still happen with this scenario in this rather long one-shot. Not really much else to say.

* * *

Littlefoot splashed into the water, startling a few young turtles that had been swimming around there. Ducky and Spike were right behind him. Petrie was failing to keep up as he waded through the pond behind his friends, contrast to riding on Littlefoot's head as the young Pterodactyl had always done before now.

The four friends swam to a shoreline when it happened. They heard a loud, all too familiar roar echoing down from the nearby mountain.

Petrie was the first to scream "SHARPTOOTH!" And he immediately lunged out of the water with a burst of energy, wrapping his wings tightly around the first thing he grabbed. Littlefoot's neck, in this case, as the four hid behind the nearest boulder.

Ducky also screamed. "It's sharptooth!" she gasped. The four young dinosaurs watched as Sharptooth made his way up the hillside toward a cave located at the peak of the mountain.

"Let's get rid of him once and for all," Littlefoot said in a determined voice.

"What do we do?" Ducky asked.

"We'll coax him to the deep end of the pond." Littlefoot stared into the darkest part of the pond as he said this. "He can't swim with those scrawny arms. Me and Spike will go up and push that rock onto his head, then it'll fall right in the water." Then Littlefoot looked Petrie right in the eyes. "Petrie, you whistle when he's at the right spot: where the water gets darker. Now we just need some bait…"

Littlefoot, Petrie, and Spike all immediately smiled slyly at Ducky as soon as that was said.

And she knew what they were thinking, too, just because of the looks on their faces.

"Me!" Ducky gasped, horrified. Then she rapidly told them no several times.

* * *

But Ducky agreed to do it anyway. Her pulse was racing as she slowly and cautiously followed Sharptooth into the cave. The Tyrannosaur had his back toward Dusky, but she expected him to turn around at anytime.

Ducky whimpered the entire time she tiptoed after him and a loud growl let out by Sharptooth immediately sent her into behind a rock no larger than she was. Ducky thought she was caught and would become his next meal, but that never happened thankfully. She peaked over the rock before intentionally letting out a piercing scream that immediately gained Sharptooth's attention. He looked back but saw nothing with his one good eye and disappeared seemingly deeper into the cave in the few seconds Ducky had hidden behind the rock again.

Ducky saw no sign of Sharptooth when she finally found enough bravery to peek out from behind her hiding place again. She started to step over it to go deeper in the cave but decided against that idea and started to head back for the cave opening. And that was when it happened. First came the loud growl as Sharptooth snuck up behind Ducky—from where, she had no idea! And then Ducky screamed at the top of her lungs as she ran for her life, Sharptooth in hot pursuit of the tiny Saurolophus. Sharptooth fell and the two went sliding down the muddy incline on their bellies, one roaring angrily and the other screaming in terror.

But the plan worked. Sharptooth was just at the deep end of the pond after crashing through a boulder headfirst. And Ducky, she was safe hiding underneath an underwater rock that formed a crevice with its position. But neither Sharptooth nor her friends realized this and thought she was still at his mercy.

"DUCKY!" Littlefoot and Petrie screamed in unison, their blood running cold with terror. But Petrie managed to keep his senses enough to whistle, not only signaling Littlefoot and Spike to begin pushing against the rock with their heads but also alerting Sharptooth of their presence.

"Push, Spike, push with all your might!" Littlefoot ordered in a near panic because the rock was hardly moving as they saw Petrie toss a small stone at Sharptooth to distract him. The stone bounced off of the top of his head, clearly enraging the Tyrannosaur further.

Petrie laughed hysterically at the enraged Sharptooth, provoking him to head butt the side of the cliff where the three dinosaurs had thought they were all safe from their enemy. Petrie screamed as he fell toward Sharptooth's jaws, which only narrowly missed taking a bite out of Petrie. Sharptooth snorted and the resulting gust sent Petrie soaring back up to safety. And he realized something more in that moment…

"I'm flying!" Petrie shouted with joy. "I'M FLYING! I'M FLYING!"

But his joy was short lived when they heard ducky screaming for him, the three friends saw her lying flat on her back across Sharptooth's muzzle. Littlefoot and Spike didn't hesitate to go back to the difficult task of pushing the rock as Petrie bravely careened back down to save Ducky.

Petrie screeched ferociously for his age and grunted as he aggressively pulled against Sharptooth's eyelids. But this did nothing more than just anger Sharptooth into lunging into the air. And he landed atop the boulder that Littlefoot and Spike had been trying to push over the ledge! This made the plan much more difficult, if not impossible!

Ducky was safe, but that fact didn't stop Petrie from continuing to bravely attack Sharptooth's eyes as his friends pushed the rock. But they weren't strong enough to push it off the ledge—it was only slowly moving inch-by-inch.

But then they heard a familiar bleating sound from behind them before someone yelled, "I'm coming!"

And before any of them could react, the four friends saw Cera jump over both Littlefoot and Spike. She grunted in pain when her head impacted the rock hard enough to dislodge it from the ledge. And it went over the ledge, Sharptooth roaring almost in defeat as he careened toward the pond below.

But the friends' joy of finally defeating Sharptooth quickly turned into only horror when they realized Sharptooth wasn't going out along.

"HEEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPPPP!" Petrie screamed as Sharptooth's teeth sank into his short tail. And before Petrie could even finish screaming, both him and Sharptooth had vanished underneath the pond's surface. It was all over in only seconds and the area fell silent.

Looks of grief came over the faces of Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, and Spike as they stared down at the bubbling water, praying that Petrie would resurface. But he never did minutes later and the cold truth hit them like a ton of rocks. Their friend was gone and nothing could be done to bring him back.

"H-He was my friend…" Ducky sobbed. "Poor Petrie…"

The four friends slowly turned and walked away, feeling nothing more than defeat even though they had succeeded in making sure Sharptooth would never hurt anyone again. Their victory had cost them a true friend who didn't deserve such a fate.

Tears filled all of their eyes as Ducky continued sobbing. Littlefoot, Cera, and Spike couldn't find the strength to speak at all, their grief was so great.

"Poor, poor Petrie…" Ducky sniffed. "Petrie…"

There was a low gasping from behind the grieving friends and then what sounded like wet wings landing against stone. But the friends kept on heading in the direction they believed would lead them to The Great Valley, their only hope for survival now.

"STOP!" Petrie screamed. "You go on without P-Petrie…?"

But the young Pterodactyl realized that his friends seemed to have no idea he was begging for them as they vanished from his line of sight. They never returned for him. Now it was Petrie who felt tears run down his face as he looked to the ground, feeling so alone and almost betrayed even.

It was when Petrie looked down that he realized why none of his friends had noticed him pleading for them to come back for him. His hide was no longer brown but a pure white color and his wings had a misty appearance to them.

* * *

Elsewhere, Littlefoot was grieving the losses of both Petrie and his mother, both taken from him too soon by Sharptooth. He found no comfort at all in knowing that Sharptooth was finally dead and would never be able to hurt another dinosaur again. He had lost his mother and now a good friend before getting to know either of them. Littlefoot felt his heart breaking as a cloud overhead took the shape of his mother.

"Mother!" cried Littlefoot.

"Littlefoot…" he heard his mother's voice say in a low tone.

"Mother, I tried to do what you told me, but it's just too hard…" Littlefoot sobbed. "…I'll never mind The Great Valley."

Littlefoot felt a breeze pass him by and he begged for his mother to don't go as the cloud formation lost its shape and blew through a tunnel in the mountain. He followed it to a ledge overlooking what seemed to be a large, dark valley with many clouds floating over it. Littlefoot looked up to see the sun shining through the longneck-shaped cloud, slowly revealing a luscious, green valley instead of a dead, dark valley.

"The Great Valley!" Littlefoot said in all before calling out the names of his remaining friends. Cera, Ducky, and Spike all came running immediately. Despite their grief for Petrie, they felt the same awe that Littlefoot had when he first saw valley below.

"Littlefoot, you found it!" Ducky exclaimed. "Yep, yep, yep!"

"We did it!" Littlefoot exclaimed in response. "We found it together!"

They were finally safe and would soon be reunited with their families that they hadn't seen in so long. Some of them, anyway…Petrie was gone and Spike an orphan.

* * *

And finally, in The Great Valley, the three young dinosaurs were finally reunited with their respective families. Except for Spike, but Ducky's parents immediately agreed to take him into their family as a son.

But there was one family that would be grieving on this sunny day instead of rejoicing. Petrie's widowed mother cried when her son never came flying toward her like the other young dinosaurs had gone running to their families. She and her remaining children all joined together in mourning their not one but now _two_ lost family members. First Petrie's father had perished in the great earthquake weeks earlier. And now they had lost Petrie, the youngest of the hatchlings.

"Oh, P-Petrie…" his mother sobbed as she miserably looked down at her children on the branch, an empty spot between them as if they couldn't bear to not have Petrie there with them.

And alone on a hillside, Littlefoot seemed to cry along with Petrie's family even though both were unaware of the other's current grief. He felt almost incomplete without Petrie and his mother even though his remaining friends and family were safe in The Great Valley. And then there was his father he had never known…was he even alive or had he met his end at the teeth of Sharptooth just like his mother had?

Being in The Great Valley didn't change anything for Littlefoot as he thought about all of these things.


End file.
